by Julie Wright
“Tasty,” Ben said. He still had a few fries left. The fact that I didn’t take them made me a true friend. “They also had tom yum soup.”
“Poor Tom.” I took one of Ben’s fries after all, if only to clean up the rest of the ketchup on my plate.
He dropped his head in his hands and gave a low groan. “I cannot believe I misread your text. I never skim communications. I feel incredibly stupid. Please say you forgive me.”
“Are you still apologizing? We’ve already established that we’re both bad at communicating. And being with you right now makes up for anything.” I paused, fiddling with my paper napkin. “I’ve really missed you since I left Mid-Scene.”
“You’ve missed me?”
“So much. It’s nice to have someone who gets me. I’ve missed everything. Like playing movie quotes. I’ve missed that,” I said.
“What? No one else will play?” he asked, leaning his elbows on the table.
“Honestly, I haven’t got enough friends in my life to play games with. Emma and I play a similar game with Jane Austen quotes, but I always get tripped up trying to remember which ones came from the actual books and which ones came from the movies. Emma knows more about Jane Austen than anyone on the planet.”
“You do, too, don’t you? I seem to remember something about you going to a Jane Austen ball or something.”
I laughed. “I did do that. It was so much fun. It’s too bad—” I cut off since I was going to say “It’s too bad I hadn’t taken you with me.” We weren’t working together when I went to the ball, so I could have invited him. Why hadn’t I thought to invite Ben? “Anyway,” I continued, “though I am definitely a fan of all things Austen, I love the movies more than the books, which would be a sacrilege to Emma. You can’t ever tell her. I don’t think she’d ever forgive me.”
Ben drew an X over his heart; he was the only person I knew in the whole world who literally crossed his heart when making a promise.
“So, what’s the worst line in all of movie history, in your opinion?” Ben asked.
“Easy. ‘I truly, deeply love you.’ Padme to Anakin. Episode Two. I feel like throwing up just thinking about it.”
“Lines like that are done in other movies all the time. Do you hate it in all of them, or just in that one?”
“What other movies?” I’d forgotten how good he was at our game.
He laughed, nudging the tray of food wrappers to the side so he could cross his arms on the table in front of him. The restaurant had filled up while we’d been eating, and the static buzz of dozens of conversations around us required us to speak louder. “Well, there’s the movie with the actual title Truly Madly Deeply.”
“I don’t think I know that one.”
Ben looked surprised. “Really? It had Alan Rickman in it and won several awards. I think you’d like it.”
I gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe it wasn’t the line, maybe it was the fact that Padme and Anakin had zero on-screen chemistry. I just didn’t believe she really loved him. And I definitely don’t believe he loved her. The line probably would have been fine if it had been a couple who really seemed in love. What about you? What’s the worst movie line you’ve ever heard?”
“In Man of Steel, when Lois Lane says to Superman, ‘They say it’s all downhill after the first kiss.’ And then Superman says, ‘I’m pretty sure that only counts when you’re kissing a human.’ I hate that one.”
I thought about it for several moments before shaking my head. “I think it’s kind of cute. Why do you hate that one?”
“It’s an insult to all male members of the human race. It’s saying that a woman has to kiss an alien in order to have a long-lasting and meaningful relationship because not one human man is up to the task.”
His point was not lost on me. “I see. It’s another way society makes men into bumbling, inadequate idiots. But it can also be looked at as an insult to women. I’m sure the writers didn’t mean it that way, but in that particular situation, Lois Lane is the human. So, wouldn’t it be all downhill for him because he kissed a human?”
Ben grinned. “I kinda like that—the great equalizer where all humans are inadequate, not just half the population. But since we both know the writers did not mean it like that, it stays on my least-favorite list.”
Point accepted. I glanced at our empty food tray with a degree of disappointment. When was the last time my appetite had actually worked to remind me I was hungry? Since starting at Portal Pictures, I’d been too nervous or busy to eat, so my appetite abandoned me, likely realizing I planned on ignoring it anyway, but now that calm and peace had settled over me, my body felt ravenous.
“What else?” I asked. “On your least-favorite list, I mean?”
He thought a moment. “Sixth Sense: ‘I see dead people.’ But it’s also on my list of best lines because there is so much awesome about it. The problem is that, out of context, it’s incredibly corny. In context, it’s creepy. It’s also a great hint at the twist ending, since Haley Joel Osment looks right at Bruce Willis’s character when he says it the first time. I guess that makes it count as a best and a worst.”
He looked at the tray with what might have been disappointment, too. I told him to hang on a moment and went and ordered us another basket of fries to share. When I got back, he shook his head and said, “What would you say if I told you that it makes me uncomfortable that you bought that?”
“Why would it make you uncomfortable?”
“Because I am taking you on a date.”
“I’d probably give you a lecture regarding my independence and tell you to get with the century. But I would also tell you that it’s nice to see a man who takes respect seriously and that it’s nice knowing you aren’t a failure-to-launch guy living in his mom’s basement playing video games all night with his online-only friends and sleeping all day.”
“Ah. Good thing I didn’t mention anything so that we avoided an awkward conversation where I’d wonder if you’d judge me for living in my parents’ house until I was through all of film school and that I spent a lot of time playing video games during that period in my life. It’s also a good thing we avoided the conversation so you didn’t get the misconception that it was a failure-to-launch thing, since it was more of a delayed launch. I’d hate for my self-image to be damaged in any way.”
“I don’t know. You seem pretty confident to me. I doubt your self-image has ever been shaken by a dumb girl.”
He wiped his hands together to brush off the salt. “You’re right. But an intelligent woman has the ability to do some very real damage.”
I didn’t bother to pretend that his words didn’t have an effect on me because I could see the very real vulnerability in his eyes as he said them.
The delivery counted as smooth. And sweet. I’d never thought of Ben as smooth before. Sweet, yes, but smooth was a new side of Ben. A side I found incredibly attractive. The open honesty was also attractive. But talking about him in the context of other women made me curious. Ben and I had spent hours talking about everything while we’d worked together, but we’d never talked much about our dating lives at all.
So we talked about our experiences dating other people. He told me all about the time a very pretty girl had invited him over to meet her entire family because she’d told them he was her boyfriend—except it was only their first date. I told him about the time a guy who wore a prosthetic asked me to prom by sending me a box with a wooden leg inside it that had belonged to him when he was little. The note said, “Would you be willing to dance your legs off with me?”
I told Ben about how I answered the guy with one of my fake eyes from when I was younger and a note that said, “Eye would love to!” Ben about choked on his laughter when he found out the guy hadn’t known I had a fake eye.
Ben and I spent another hour sitting in those hard chairs discussing
everything that came to our minds, telling each other stories about our childhood or other jobs or other dates. The awkwardness of our first real date had ended with the failed sushi attempt, and everything from that moment on had been comfortable and easy. The easiness of the conversation was not lost on me. I thought of how Emma said that friends made the best boyfriends and decided she might really be onto something.
When Ben finally took me home, it was accompanied by apologies for getting sidetracked by his restaurant gaffe, and for lingering over dinner so long we had to forgo his other plans because it was simply too late.
He never mentioned what his other plans might have been, but no amount of over-priced entertainment could have replaced the simple, tranquil peace I’d found in a night of easy companionship.
Ben walked me to the door with his brow furrowed deep. “Really,” he said. “I am much cooler than tonight would lead you to believe. This was just an off-night for me. Please let me have another chance.”
“I don’t know, Ben . . .”
At his stricken look, I realized this was not a time for teasing. Maybe later—because the way things felt at that exact moment, I was certain there would be a later. Likely even a much later.
I stared at Ben with open wonder when I turned to face him. We stood close enough, the smell of him made me want to flutter my eyes closed and simply breathe him in. Who knew such a citrusy, musky scent could be so incredibly masculine?
“How about tomorrow? Is tomorrow too soon to try again?” he asked.
“I’m helping my grandma tomorrow night.”
“Oh.” The hope in his eyes snuffed out like a candle at bedtime. “What are you doing?”
“It’s a charity thing. The real kind with manual labor this time. She’s been acting so strangely lately, though, we could be doing anything, really.”
“Volunteering is considered strange behavior?” He leaned against my porch railing.
Why wasn’t I inviting him in? Why was I not unlocking my door and asking him to come in and sit down on my couch so we could continue talking?
I didn’t know. So I pushed on with the conversation at hand while not reaching for my keys or opening my doors or asking him inside.
“Volunteering is fine. It’s just that she’s made a lot of changes all at once, and it’s hard to keep track. Her behavior patterns have all shifted, and I’m still trying to figure it out. I mean, she has a boyfriend I didn’t even know about until last night.”
“What time are you going to help her?”
“Five tomorrow evening.”
He looked up and to the side like he did when he was trying to visualize something. “Why don’t I pick you up at 4:30, and we can help your grandma together?”
I gave him a doubtful look. “You want to hang out with my geriatric grandmother on your Sunday afternoon off?” Grandma would not love how I’d phrased that.
“Sure,” Ben said. He pulled himself up onto the banister and perched there. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s with you.”
Yep. Smooth Ben was definitely worth knowing. I maintained eye contact to be certain he genuinely had no objections. I moved toward him, carefully, slowly. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you about a certain picture on your fridge . . .”
A grin curved his lips. “You saw that, huh?”
I nodded.
“I’m torn between being glad that you saw it and embarrassed.”
I put my hands on either side of him on the banister, knowing the move was forward, but also knowing I would have to be forward because Ben, smooth or otherwise, was always Nice Ben. We were close, painfully close. Yet, painfully too far away, as well.
“Why am I on your fridge? And why did you take me down again?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t flinch away from the question like most people would have. He owned it outright. “Because I’ve been in love with you since your first month at Mid-Scene when you stomped into Stan’s office and yelled at him for changing your work on the Valentine project. To see you stand up for yourself like that was very attractive. Most people are afraid to demand respect like that. It made you stand out. That’s why it bothered me to think Dean Thomas was strangling out the woman I’d fallen for.”
“He wasn’t strangling me, at least he’s not as much anymore—”
“Silvia?” He interrupted me by placing his hands on my shoulders and pulling me closer, enough to feel the warmth radiating off him. His closeness, his warmth, made me forget what we were talking about.
“Hmm?”
“You’re missing the most important part of all that.”
“What part?”
“The part where I told you I love you . . . twice.”
“Oh.” Just oh. As in, Oh my stars, how did I get to this wonderful place?
He smiled wider, his eyes scanning my face as if memorizing me. “It would be great to know how you felt about me in return.”
“Right. How I feel . . . about that . . .” No sense in delaying any further. I tilted up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips softly against his. A kiss with a question in it. Do you really love me? Really?
His answer was to pull me in the rest of the way. One of his hands reached behind my neck; his fingers threaded through my hair. His other hand moved to the small of my back and tightened around me until no space existed between us. The soft kiss became more urgent. One kiss became two and three as years of unrequited love received its just reward.
I pulled away, cradling his face in my hands, and said, “Does that answer your question?”
“I’d ask you to say the words out loud, but I get that this is pretty new for you, even if I’ve felt this way for a long time. I can accept this for now.”
“For now?”
“I’ve dated lots of women between knowing how I felt about you and right now. Enough to know that my feelings for you are the real deal. I need to know your feelings for me are also the real deal. So when you’re ready, let me know.”
He was right. While I felt all the stirrings and knew the potential of what we had, he’d been thinking about it for far longer than I had been. “Deal.” It was as close as my heart could give him.
We kissed on it.
“If people loved each other more, they’d shoot each other less.”
—Ariane, played by Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon
The next evening, Ben and I spent time helping Grandma and Walt do inventory. Walt and Ben had become fast friends and lobbed jokes back and forth to each other the entire night. Walt even laughed at Ben’s mention of the chances of dying while skydiving. A double date with grandparents might have been weird with anyone else, but with Ben, it was nothing short of perfect.
If Ben and I had been in a movie, I might have awoken Monday morning to find a hundred flowers on my doorstep, but we weren’t a movie, and I expected nothing like that. What I did wake up to was flowers on my phone. A GIF of fragile, pink cherry blossom petals being blown out of the open palms of someone’s hands showed up in my text messages from Ben. Could life be any more flawless?
The short answer was yes. My glorious weekend received a small extension, since I allowed myself to sleep in and be a teensy bit late to work. This meant I arrived in the office to a buzz and flurry of activity by people who usually weren’t in the office until much later. It startled me to see them all. After shaking down a few people for information, I pieced together the reason for the busyness: the success of the press junket and a few particular reviews had essentially guaranteed Sliver of Midnight’s recognition by the Academy. Every review so far had declared the film as “one to watch,” “the darling of the year,” a film that would “sweep the Academy Awards.” But some new reviews had just come in from some of the more renowned outlets that were the equivalent of an iron-clad contract with the Academy.
The buzz had inspired the executive
team of Portal Pictures to visit our side of the building, an occurrence that definitely could be filed under hardly-ever-happens. The pride they felt over the success of Sliver of Midnight had our entire department striding around the office with more swagger than usual.
Adam happened to come into work early on the day the executives planned to show up, which made me wonder if he’d known they were coming and kept that knowledge to himself. “Today’s the day,” he whispered to me. “Today’s the day I’m going to be noticed. I need to meet these guys, be introduced, have them like me, and invite me to audition for Gray Skies. At this point, I don’t even care if they give me a part as the janitor. Today, Silvia. Dean promised.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, hoping it would turn out like he wanted. We worked in such a fickle business where decisions were as much luck as anything. It didn’t help that Dean’s promises weren’t anything that could be taken to the bank.
Adam knocked on Dean’s door, which had been closed since I’d arrived that morning. He didn’t invite Adam to enter, but he seldom did, so without waiting, Adam smiled brightly and opened the door. “Do you need anything befo—” Adam broke off mid-word.
I poked my head around the corner and peeked into Dean’s office.
Dean had on his angry eyes, the ones that were rimmed red from hours of drinking, the ones that meant it would be hard working with him. Today, of all days. The big question was whether Dean was still drunk or just hungover. Hungover meant he needed us to help clean him up. Still drunk meant we’d be better off closing the door, telling the execs that he’d gone out, and praying he didn’t exit his office to reveal us as liars.
“Dean?” I said.
“She moved,” he said, his eyes unfocused, as if seeing something beyond the room, beyond us, beyond his control.
Not exactly the comment I was expecting, and also not enough to base a determination of sobriety. “Dean? Are you okay?”
“What?” He finally looked at us and actually saw us and not whatever it was he’d been talking about. “I’m fine.”
